Welcome to Be Well, where we talk about all aspects of wellness in your life.
I'm Shannon Lane.
I'm Elizabeth has
and every day we're bringing you the latest in fitness, beauty and food.
Plus keeping you in the know on medical breakthroughs and
saving you time and money at home and of course,
having a whole lot of fun along the way also.
So you can live life better on today's show.
Seven time Grammy Award winner, Tony Braxton,
the singer actress and reality TV, star is getting
real about a life threatening health scare what her body was telling her
and how she wants you to be proactive about your own health.
Plus a troubling trend surrounding teens and their mental health parents.
We're going to tell you how to start some important conversations. That's right.
And we're focusing on your flexibility stretches you can do
at home any time to keep your muscles moving.
This is be well helping you live life better.
Joining us right now is R and B legend, Tony Braxton since 2008.
She's been living with S L E, the most common form of lupus.
And as a result of that disease recently suffered a pretty traumatic health scare.
Yeah, Tony, thank you so much for being with us today and thank you for,
we know you've been living with Lupe for 15 years now.
You've been to the hospital for more times than you care to admit.
But this time was a little different. You didn't go get help right away.
First of all, why not? And then what led you to finally go get help?
You know, I've been living with loop like you mentioned for more than 15 years,
which is completely telling my age.
But um I, um
I've been having some serious health complications and
it's even starting to affect my kidneys.
I remember that day, um, a couple months ago, I was not gonna go to the doctors.
I was had a loss. My sister had passed.
So I thought, oh, I'm just grieving and I was not gonna go to the doctors and
had I not gone to the doctors. I would not be sitting here talking to you today.
The doctor's literally saved my life.
I just a doctor's appointment that I was not gonna go to.
So I'm thrilled to be here today
because
is aware of this month.
I'm partnering with
talking about the get uncomfortable campaign
that I absolutely love because every time
I go to the doctors to get those screenings and those tests,
I'm completely uncomfortable tinkling and peeing in that cup or getting poked.
I don't feel like it is. I, I'm just not in the mood for it.
So I, I'm trying to encourage people even myself and make, make us all feel empowered
about being uncomfortable, being uncomfortable.
How do you do that right now for the people at home?
What are some of the signs and symptoms
that you were seeing before you were diagnosed?
You know, no, two lupus cases are the same what I may have.
It may, may not affect someone else or vice versa.
Um But I can tell you even with, with kidney health,
um, puffiness your fingers, your ankles, your,
your anything like that or you're just maybe a little
too explicit but urine if it looks like beer,
not a good thing.
Um So those are just little, little things, little things with kidney issues. Um
I, I I've learned that one in three people with lupus nephritis,
which is kidney issues with lupus,
uh will probably experience kidney failure and may
need dialysis or even a kidney transplant.
So it's important that you get in tune with your kidney health.
Go to the doctor because I tell my fellow
people who are dealing with Lupus. I know you don't want to do it but embrace it.
Embrace the uncomfortable.
Yeah.
And that's why these conversations are so important to speak about this,
especially for African American women who face it
four times more than their counterparts with this.
How important is it?
And how else are you getting the word out and what should people do?
You know the I have this website? Well, it's not my website. I just love this website.
It's easy to remember because it's part of get uncomfortable. It's called W w w Get
Uncomfortable dot com.
It's a wonderful website and it is so informative if you don't have
a doctor to point you in a direction to getting a doctor.
I,
I found that like you mentioned African American women and
Asian women are four times more likely to develop this.
Uh Hispanic women and Native American women are
two times more likely to develop this.
So what can we do about your kidney health is so important kidney failure?
We don't want that. What can we do?
And it's ok to be afraid, it's ok to be scared to go to the doctors,
but I'm there with you.
I'm gonna encourage you and push you to go.
But that's what we have guts for to help us get over our fear, you know.
So when we talk about our kidney health, what do you mean by that?
How can we be supporting our kidney health
screenings? Getting routine blood tests?
Uh That's the most non invasive way to do it. Um Peeing in a cup.
That's what I'm talking about urinating in a cup doing that.
Your doctors can test, you may have no symptoms at all. It can be silent sometimes.
Um And that's the best way to go about.
That's why it's so important with people with, dealing with lupus and lupus
nephritis. Don't put off going to the doctors and I,
that you have put off going to the doctor before, when you fell off stage,
you fell on stage,
you hurt your foot and you didn't go for years and then you finally went.
See, I know. See, you tell about
yourself.
So
I had
to.
Yes,
you carried it well, you carried it well, no one know.
But what can you tell to encourage women to go,
to get past those uncomfortable fears to actually go men as well?
You know, I could just say just do it, do it, do it. Ok. I have a little joke.
Yes, just do it.
Just do it. And I know you don't wanna do it, but it's important to do.
We have a lot of life to live. You know, the goal is old age.
The goal is to be a centennial. You know,
it's ok.
So we, we go to the doctors, the doctors may be able to suppress it.
There's so many wonderful medications out there.
Your doctor can point you in the right direction on the health care,
what works best for you
and what caused you to have these conversations now to
really speak out and share your story with people.
You know, I've always talked about it. I've always been an advocate about lupus.
But I think that last health scare pushed me like, oh, no, I have to pay this for it.
I have to talk about it. I have to push my girls to do something about it. It's ok.
Like I said, we, our schedules are so busy.
Like I'm a mom, I'm doing this and I'm working and I have this
but we tend to
forget about ourselves. Take the time, girls, it takes 20 minutes.
I know we don't wanna do. It takes 20 minutes, but let's just do it.
Well, I'm glad you did it because now you're gonna be here for many, many, many,
many years to come delivering many, many, many, many more songs.
So talk to us about your music. What are you up to in the music arena? And what's next?
I'm working on new music. I'm in the studio right now.
I am looking forward to touring. I won't be able to tour like I did in the past.
Like I can tour probably, but
not seven and eight shows a week, maybe two or three shows.
But someone mentioned to me like maybe Vegas.
So like maybe I'll go to Vegas,
which is easier to be in one spot is always easier on your health.
I like that idea
for sure.
I've actually sung on stage before with Tony a long time ago.
Back in the day, she brought me on stage to sing a little doo-wop.
But
what did we think? What did we think
it was it was a hot mess. It was here in New York. You were great.
You were
right.
But you said at least I tried, you know, I tried but you said I said my,
sung my heart out and I didn't do a
good
job.
But
I
told
you and I have sung together many times but she just,
she just never knew it because it was in my house.
I'm sorry,
we'll
get
better. We'll practice for next time, for
practice for,
I'm ready for it.
Yeah, because we can't wait to see you and you know, celebrate your success and your,
and your health and well,
yes.
Yes,
absolutely. And I gotta ask you guys.
So before you go, how do you balance it all? You, you mean your kids are what?
19 and 20 now your sons, but you are still dealing with a lot between your health,
your family, you know, TV, and all these other projects.
How do you balance it all?
Because I think that was what steers people from going to the doctor so many times
some days you're not gonna balance it and don't worry about it.
Just accept, you're not gonna balance it today and that's the only thing you can do.
Take it easy on yourself. Be kind to yourself
that right.
Well, you continue to take it easy on yourself,
be kind to yourself and thank you for working on new music.
We can't wait. Thanks to R and B legend Tony Braxton.
Right.
We do want to take a moment to check in and take care of our mental
health and mother nature can have a positive
impact on our mental and emotional health.
And that's right.
I had a chance to actually disconnect from technology,
which is also so important and really reconnect with the simpler things in life.
As the saying goes, sometimes you have to stop and smell the flowers. today.
We're with Mirror, who's gonna tell us why that's important for your mental health.
And we're gonna make a bouquet ourselves from scratch.
We're not just gonna buy one off the shelves, right? Ok.
So first of all, why are flowers so good for us?
I think we all are affected by beautiful things, right?
Like it, it feels nice to be around nice, beautiful things.
So why not bring them into your home?
I think there's also just kind of a
pleasure in putting something together and being creative so
accomplished. Absolutely. I think it lets the brain rest in a different way.
We're all on our phones a lot and this is a little bit,
especially for like city dwellers.
I think it's like a nice way to interact with nature. Ok.
Well, let's interact with this nature. What do we do first in making a bouquet? Yeah.
So I like to start with the branchy leafy
ones that you might have. So these are lilacs. Uh they're in season. Right.
Right.
Now and you can really, you can leave the leaves on it as long as they're looking good,
just give them a good snip,
make sure no leaves are like submerged in the water and then
you can just keep going like it makes it look full also
has a little pop of color to it.
That's right. A lot of people feel like this is therapeutic as well.
So it's like, yes, you're making something beautiful,
but it's also relaxing and feeding your soul
so
great. I mean, I'm biased of course,
but I find there's a lot of beauty and also watching the flowers as they get older,
uh, do their thing, you know, like tulips, for example,
continue to grow after you've cut them.
So in the vase they'll continue to grow and change just like
we do and that's kind of a fun thing to watch.
And, uh,
you know,
I think it's, uh, it's an interesting thing to, to see now,
what do you say to people who are a little intimidated?
Like, oh, I'm gonna mess this up.
I can't, I can't make a flower arrangement look pretty.
Yeah, I'm a big, uh, proponent of just doing the thing and learning from doing it,
right?
Like it's in your home. If you're enjoying it, it's something that you should like.
I think, uh,
you'll learn by stepping back living with the arrangement for a couple of days,
which is also kind of a nice practice.
Right. And flowers, it's not static. You can rearrange the arrangement.
Yeah.
Take them out,
start all over and sometimes I don't like what I've been doing so I'll start again.
I also find interestingly enough if I'm not breathing,
if I find myself like holding my breath while I'm
doing it because I'm stressed or something like that.
It's a very different arrangement than when I'm breathing and putting in the,
the
breath.
Yeah.
Enjoy the beauty.
You mentioned something earlier about the power of three and the triangle.
So, what is that? Yeah. So
uh
I just find that in a composition.
So you're arranging for yourself right now,
we're going to turn it around for the camera so they can see it.
I find that like finding some triangulation and an arrangement.
So a little a higher point, uh maybe a slightly less high point and then a lower point.
So I would say with this guy, I know now we're arranging it backwards,
but I aim to put the bloom somewhere around here.
Yeah, exactly.
And
sort
of triangle in the vase
and three. So three big points to look at. Exactly.
And sometimes our groups and flowers together. So we've got uh some tulips here.
We could add another tulip with it, but really there's no wrong way to do it.
The beauty of flowers. Well, they are beautiful. Thank you Mira
and maybe go ahead and get yourself some flowers,
get a friend some flowers can't go wrong with flowers.
Absolutely
great job. Right up next.
Anxiety, depression, sadness,
more and more teens are struggling with their mental health.
Yeah. So we're going to have an important conversation.
You don't want to miss up next on. Be. Well.